Facebook feed

Follow object-e

KU School of Architecture (WA 2nd cycle Awards)

A design/research project, for a new school of architecture for the KU. The research begun as an exploration of the properties of lattice structures with rigid joins and the ways that they can be applied to architecture. Starting point was Frei Otto’s research on the same subject and it was evolved into a study of how a structural system can `overcome` its main property (that of being structurally efficient) and became a system that is at the same time an `ornamental` element and the element that defines spaces (and of course the structural system as well).
The results of the research were applied on a specific design problem: A new school of architecture located in the Kansas University Campus. Kansas University is planning to build a new building to house the department of Architecture and was looking for innovative ideas in order to see what the needs of the project are and what directions it could follow.
The solution proposes an organic structural system that creates clusters of space to host the program. Even though the nature of the project is highly ‘irregular’, it is a the same time framed inside the volume of a long box, that is essentially floating above the site leaving this way the ground floor open in order for various ‘open air’ activities to take place there. Fiber carbon is used as the main material for the structural system, which combined with the extraordinary structural properties of lattice structures can allow large spans that minimize the places where the building touches the ground.